DAY 5: SHIT HAPPENS
Today’s sailing was one of the longest. It took us 8 hours to get to the Island of Symi. This was a good time to reflect since the notion of time was no longer a constraint.
After finally arriving to Panormitis, at the Island of Symi, for the first time there was no harbour. We had to stop in the middle of the sea and put an anchor down. While looking at the sea that surrounds us, a lot of things pop up from the water – there was a plastic bag for which we thought it was a person, there were branches and leaves and there were sea turtles. Some of us (almost everyone) were brave enough to go for a swim.
Unfortunately, going for a swim from an anchored boat doesn’t really look like in the movies – you just jump from the deck and dive into the water. You actually have to put the leaders down if you want to come back to the boat. So, while swimming around Marleen, for the first time there was a chance to look at the boat while being at the sea, and not in a harbour, not from a land on which you can stand on. And it was an amazing picture, almost a movie scene. But since we all know life isn’t a movie, it didn’t last – all of a sudden there was a poo floating around us! And as the title says – shit happens.
When you look at the open sea you can see it in its full beauty. You don’t really see all the garbage we throw in it, all the plastic it is filled with and all the other shit we leave behind. The sea really looks indestructible. It looks like this vast amount of water that can eat you, that can destroy you whenever it wants. But, in fact, we are destroying it. And you are not aware of it, until you see a poo (that is probably yours) or a plastic bag floating around you. But then it is too late.
Today we didn’t have a discussion
To be honest, we still don’t know if that thing floating around us was really a poo, but nobody wanted to touch it and check. But, if we are not able to touch a poo, can we really save the world?